First meeting for new EHF Executive

The first full working meeting of the EHF Executive, newly elected for a four year period at the EHF Congress in Monaco in June 2012, was held at the EHF Office in Vienna on 21/22 September.

Made up now of 10 members, the EHF Executive will also be joined by one further member at its next meeting in December, when the chair of the newly created Women’s Handball Board joins the committee. The first meeting of the Women’s Handball Board will take place on Monday 22 October in Vienna.

The Executive dealt with a long agenda: a review of summer events including the M20 European Championship in Turkey and the M18 European Championship in Austria and the follow-up to the EHF Congress in June, including the implementation of changes to the statutes in regard to amendments such as the Women’s Handball Board and Anti-Doping Unit.

The meeting also discussed planning for the 2013/14 season, task distribution and agreed the schedule of meetings for EHF bodies for 2013, including the Conference of Presidents, to take place on Sunday 2 June during the course of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in Cologne.

An issue raised in the meeting was the financial problems of individual clubs over the past season and the question of future licensing for club to strengthen the quality of club competitions in the future.

The EHF Executive also reached the following decisions:

W19 European Championship
A number of decisions were reached including a postponement of the awarding of the W19 European Championship, set to be played from 23 July to 2 August 2015, due to the high number of nations interested in organising the event. Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Portugal, Greece and Montenegro have expressed their interest. Inspections will be now be made by the EHF, with a decision to be made by the EHF Executive at its meeting in Serbia during the EHF EURO.

European Open
The future of the European Open, organised in cooperation with the Partille Cup, was discussed and it was agreed to follow up with the local organisers and the Swedish Handball Federation to confirm details of future events. The next championship will be the European Open for Men 19 at the beginning of July 2013.

Regulations
The EHF Executive agreed to a review of the arbitration and competition regulations to ensure the conformity of the two sets of regulations.

2013 EHF European Masters Championship
The decision was reached to award the championships for men’s and women’s masters teams to Brixen/Bressanone in Italy from 14-16 June 2013.

Methods Commission
The EHF Executive approved the list of lecturers put forward by the Methods Commission, subject to necessary administrative procedures. It also discussed and approved the Master Plan submitted by the Technical Commission under the banner ‘What European handball should by like/needs in 2016’.

Beach Handball
A new logo for beach handball, and in particular the European Beach Tour, was approved subject to a final amendment of the design.

Nominations
The EHF Executive dealt with the nominations to EHF and external bodies and agreed the following: